Sir: Nigeria’s problem began the day the country struck oil. And it is not unconnected with the influx of petro-dollar into the country and its mismanagement. Before then, the country’s agriculture-based economy was doing well, with the manufacturing sector making a sizeable contribution to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).
Then, all parts of the country contributed to the baking of the national cake and everyone was happy.
But, as oil money flooded the country, reason and management escaped through the nearest window and what came to bear was poor management. As a result, values were gradually eroded and priorities misplaced on the altar of corruption.
From Yakubu Gowon to Shehu Shagari, Muhammadu Buhari, Ibrahim Babangida, Sani Abacha to the current era, Nigeria has witnessed many regimes that came into more money than it could manage. But like the prodigal son, the politicians and soldiers turned a deaf ear to the warning signals.
Hands went into the treasury pots and as much money as the pockets could take was carted away in an accursed era. Soon after, and because of Nigeria’s accumulated indebtedness to the world, new lines of credit could not easily be opened. With the inflation staring the economy in the face, the naira also took a nose-dive. So, our naira, the once virile currency lost its potency.
In a twinkle of an eye, the once almighty currency has fallen from its pinnacle of power. The naira now looks pathetically up to the dollar for crumbs. The naira has fallen victim of the angry gods.
Those whom the gods want to destroy, they first make mad. The ancient Greeks who thought out this adage probably never thought of its power of endurance and continuing relevance to contemporary Nigerian society.
Nigeria, as an entity, was not in existence then and it could not have been part of its subconscious.
But that is not to say that Nigerians of the 21st century cannot take a cue, negative as it is, from the enduring ancient adage. Those economic policies that Nigerians want to destroy, they first make mad by turning them upside down and inside out; thus making nonsense of all known economic theories. And all because of the lure of money.
When few people are entrusted with the running of the affairs of the state, the first thing they do is to replace public service with avarice and fritter our resources away. Yet, money has such an enduring stay in the life of man, and of a nation. Like the blood in the mouth, you don’t know whether to swallow it or spit it out. Such is the arresting power of money.
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Dangle it in front of a female eye, and it turns into an instant aphrodisiac. Why not? That is the power of money. Some love it. Some worship it in defiance of God’s first commandment. Still there are those who hold on to it as desperately as airborne passengers cling to oxygen masks in a depressurised aircraft.
But generally, Nigerian politicians do not think or care about the interest of Nigeria as a whole. All they care about is their selfish-interest. For instance, see what money did to Sani Abacha or is it what Abacha did to money? It made him power drunk. He plundered Nigeria’s economy, amassed enormous wealth and defiled the innocence of the Nigerians.
Though, he has been cast into dust bin of history, his name continues to surface each time monies stashed abroad is returned to the country.
Like every other corrupt leader elsewhere in the world, the power of money has been catapulting Nigerian governors particularly to the height of Kilimanjaro, as it did to the late Shah of Iran, who clung to power because of Iran’s oil money. But Iranians who wanted an equal share of the nation’s wealth sent him packing when the day of reckoning came.
The misuse of the country’s money brought leaders like the Shah of Iran down in a fiery fall akin to crash landing of an aircraft.
Where did money derive such power from? Stone Age man’s idea of what is now called money was the use of stones, beads and shells. The Egyptians and the Greeks came up with silver, copper, bronze and gold. The use of paper money, the modern medium, was started by the Chinese in the early ninth century.
Today, different countries have taken a cue from the Chinese invention and perfected it. The list is as long as the list of countries in the world: the American use dollar, the Japanese yen, the British pound sterling, the French franc, the Ghanaian cedi, the Ethiopian birr and the Nigerians naira.
Nigeria’s naira, the once powerful, almighty king of the market has become a victim of circumstance.
- Dr Goodluck F.T. Uguoji, Akute, Ogun State.
